You Had Me At Hello

I mean that seriously Boston Globe. You really did have me the second I met you.

Half the reason I write is because of The Boston Globe, specifically their sports section. I'm not sure when I began reading The Globe as I'm sure I had to be a bit older, but I can clearly remember the Sunday baseball notes section written by Peter Gammons was the first in the history of my required readings. We'll get back to Gammons in a second, but before that, a few other thoughts.

There are those older than me that absolutely shudder at the thought of the Boston institution known as The Globe potentially being shut down. But for those of us right around my middle aged 35 years, it is equally devastating.

If you are 32-40, you are a media tweener like me. I text, I read all sorts of online publications, IMDb has literally changed my life (I know no longer have to scroll through the credits to who sang a catchy song I loved... I can just look it up in the IMDb Soundtrack Listing). But I also have five magazine subscriptions, would die before I used a Kindle, and love, love, LOVE my thirty minutes at night where I get to read The Boston Globe.

I know I can get all the same stuff online, but I'll never be able to make the transition. Reading boston.com seems like work. The real, actual, physical paper still seems like enjoyment and leisure. There is nothing better than perusing every section of The Globe and stumbling across a great story. As Dan Shaughnessey (we'll get to him in a moment too) said on FNX yesterday morning, you can't do that with boston.com and I completely agree with him. An online newspaper is not friendly to surfing and finding something you would have never found. And there's something to be said for that because when you find and read about something that you were absolutely clueless about you... You know... Learned something.

And that is something else I owe to The Globe: Learning.

As we get older, it seems like we get dumber. We don't have much to challenge our minds and we become specialized at our jos. But if you read the paper everyday, you can learn that Somalia is even worse than it was post Black Hawk Down , you'll be reminded of how wild The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museuem robbery was, and there is a drinking problem at UMass (actually, maybe I didn't need The Globe to get that info).

And every part of The Globe brings something to the table. Everyday, I have something to look forward to, be it Coupling on Sundays, Luke O'Neil's Barcode on Thursdays, Devra Frist's salty restaurant reviews on Wednesday, the ease of the Monday crossword puzzle, and Wes Morris's hilarious film reviews on Friday. I don't know if I'd enjoy these that much if I read them online and I'm serious.

But what really always made me a loyal Globie (can I make that happen?) was the sports section. As I've aged, I've become far less interested in sports, never more so that now. My football aversion is well documented, the Sox are painfully white, Cam Neely is now President of Player Personnel (when the hell did he stop beating the shit out of Ulf Samuelsson and move up to the front office?!? I guess I missed that.) and any BC coverage has always and will always make me want to vomit.

But I have still always found a place in my heart for The Globe sports section. They have run out a bastion of all stars over the years. Will McDonough virtually made the NFL. I hated boxing, but read the boxing notes because Ron Borges was so awesome. Michael Smith and Michael Holley got their starts their. Kevin Paul DuPont and Peter May cover hockey and basketball as well as anyone. Back in the day, Leigh Montville was as good a columnist as their was (I still clearly remember his final article, titled "I Remember," which I once went back and read on microfiche because I wanted to see if it was as good as I remembered. It is.). And their is nothing funnier than the dude who writes "The Picks" section on Friday's during football season.

Then, there are Bob Ryan and Dan Shaughnessy. Hating these two has become a right of passage for any Bruschi shirt wearing, PJ Stock loving, Pedro hating, Masshole. If someone tells me the hate one of these two (particularly Shaughnessy), I immediately want to fight them. Ryan has created more tangible controvery over the years with his slightly racist sounding use of the word punk to describe Antoine Walker and his dispicable and idiotic comments about Juwanna Kidd. But the guy always brings it. He is still super relevant and may be the best NBA writer in the country. Even as he ages, his connections, opinions, and stories are still always relevant. And there's no better writing than his emotying out the sports desk drawer of the mind.

Back to Shaugnessy. The never ending hate is quite simply lunatic. Especially annoying is when half wit, wannabe bloggers (I'm talking to you El Pres of Barstool Sports) who can't write for shit dump on Shaugnessy. Even more annoying than that is when The Big Show dumps on Shaughnessy. Didn't he leave WEEI like, ten, twelve years ago? Why you still hating Big O? You sound like a scorned ex-boyfriend. Let it go. Like my girl Emily Giffin said, the opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference.

Hate all you want you fools, but Shaugnessy is awesome. And it boggles my mind how people continue to not understand him. Almost everything he says is toungue in cheek and as a columnist, you are SUPPOSED to have an opinion. Well an opinion, he's got. You don't always have to agree with him (I often do, I must admit), but you cannot disparage his writing. Does he mail it in from time to time and write a puff piece? Most certianly. But how many times did you mail it in this week at work? Rip his opinions and shred his ever growing cynicism, but do not discredit his writing. Between blogs and message boards, EVERYONE thinks they are a writer, but few are as amazing as my boy Dan. And if you disagree with me, then you are a moron who knows nothing about the art of writing. He's the second best Globe writer there ever was.

The best? Well that's easy. Peter Gammons.

Peter Gammons virtually created everything that we love about baseball. Hisstatistical analysis and trade coverage are the reason why fantasy leagues exist and why there is omething called The Hot Stove. He is responsible for countless front office jobs throughout the game (don't believe me? Google "Theo Epstein on Peter Gammons" sometime) and his name is attached to a baseball sub culture: The Gammons Youth.

Before there were Fantasy Baseball magazines, the USA Today and Sports Illustarted Baseball Previews, holds, WHIP, fnatasy baseball sights, Baseball Tonight, and Bill James, there was Peter Gammons.

As I wrote above, he was must reading on Sundays between the ages of about 8 and 28. In fact, the two worst words in the history printed media occured when you opened the Boston Sunday Globe and saw the byline in The Baseball Notes column read: Gordon Edes (I like Gordon by the way, just not as much as Gammons). And while Gammons seems old and often has weird love affairs with young guys who aren't that good (I kept drafting Bobby Fuckin Crosby in fabtasy leagues because of you Peter!!!), he is still a must listen or a must read. While roughly 92% of the trades he has proposed in his thirty year career have not come to fruition, you ALWAYS believed them and thought about them when he brought it up. And in a time before the internet, he was the only guy you could get SPECIFIC information from. What I mean by this is the back of a baseball card always gave you the stats of a guy, but they never gave you who had the best outfield throwing arm (Mark Whiten back in the early 90s) and who had the best breaking ball (Tom Gordon when he first came up with the Royals). Gammons came along and told us this on a weekly basis. And when Sportscenter starting hitting it's stride in the late 80s and early 90s, he would give us his Diamond Notes and that two minute clip was pretty much a televison orgasm.

It's more than the nostalgia I have with The Boston Globe though. It is a tremendous newspaper with great reporting. And as I said before, I am convinced that reading the paper makes you smarter. Is this a certified scientific fact? Absolutely not. But I feel that pushing yourself to gain multiple views and potentially learn new words and stay up to date on the issues HAS to make us smarter, doesn't it? And that's why I find it so important to having a paper in this city that I love.

These days, it seems to be the cool thing amongst conservatives to hate on The Globe and hope for it's demise. Strangely, the most positive articles I have read about The Globe have come from The Herald, which has been wildly refreshing. But for those conservatives laughing at The Globe, it is one more reason to hate you. Why would you hate something that makes you smarter? And that is good? Forget the politics for a second and ask yourself, what would you read? The Drudge Report and Fox News can only give you so much. Don't your prefer to have a bit more diversity to your learnings (since you're conservatives, probably not, huh?)? And is there sports page about poltics? How about the G Magazine and the Help Wanted section? They political? While we can get all sorts of information in all sorts of places, it is difficult to argue that for less than a buck a day (with subscription) you can basically get the whole world.

I know The Globe has fucked up and I know the newspaper industry is in flux to say the least. The whole industry seemed to be painfully behind the times with the transition to the electronic world. But not everything can be blamed on something as simple as that. As a society, we are reading at historic lows (This is true, believe me. The book industry is getting shellacked if your title does not contain the words Harry, Potter, or Twilight in them) and we have less time to read the paper (the number one reason subscribers cite as their rationale for cancelling their subscription). I also think that people read more online because it is easier to get away with at work. If I'm on hall duty, I look like far less of a slacker if I am in front of my laptop as opposed to thumbing through the sports section, even though I'm doing the exact same thing on the computer. Also, young people haven't embraced the paper. Yes, I sound like an old bag, but when's the last time you saw a kid reading the paper in class or on the T? Remember those days in collge? Everyone killed time by reading the newspaper. Now, they listen to their iPods and surf their wireless Macs.

God did that sound old.

But if The Globe really does go the way of New Coke, I'll miss my paper.

It completes me.

Ladies, Under No Circumstance Should You Be Doing This

Yes I still blog.

It's been a while, I know. This new job is KILLING my blog time. As are my incredibly busy weekends consuming alcohol, drafting fantasy teams (THAT preparation sucked up a good bit of my blog time!), eating buffalo wings, seeing bands (House of Blues might suck), getting smoked on college basketball bets (you gotta hit that wide open three to cover, you Louisville scrub!), and arguing with my friends on email (most of my writing time has gone there). But anyways, I'm back and I've got loads to talk about, so be ready for a rash of posts.

But even with all of this going on, I did find some time to watch women's basketball on the treadmill the other day and you know what I figured out?

It is awful.

Like, sour milk, frizzy hair, Caddyshack II, Christmas Fruit Cake awful.

In fact, it is more awful than all of those things put together.

I wish that my liberal, Title IX LOVING, smash through the glass ceiling side of me could come out on this one, but it cannot. I wish I could lie and support these surely wonderful ladies. I wish I could say I want to go to a game or wax poetic about the greatness of the game.

But I cannot.

Because women's college basketball is just sooooo bad.

I may be offending a female reader or two with this one (does this bother you Gees?), but c'mon. It's awful and you know it. Search your inner feelings young Skywalker; you know this to be true.

I mean, really what's to like?

Do you like the ugly set shots, or the painfully slow developing fast breaks? Do you like Pat Summitt's face or Gino Auriemma's skeaziness (BTW, when is a woman going to coach a men's sport? Imagine Jenny Finch strolling out to the mound to yank CC Sabathia from the game after 5 2/3 innings? Does he hand her the ball? Does he even look at her? I mean, she'd probably be better than Grady Little at knowing when to remove pitchers from the game and bring in a reliever, no? We will truly know the glass ceiling has been shattered when I see a woman grab the ball from a pitchers hand on the mound at Fenway and slap him on the ass.)? Maybe you like the fact that you can follow your favorite Stanford Lady Cardinal to the WNBA or the weird screams that permeate the audience after a "big" shot goes down. Or perhaps you like the awkward chest bumps (these creepy celebrations make Phil Mickelson's victory leap at
The Masters seem hip and cool) or those high flying slam dunks? Oh wait, those don't exist.

Interlude: I mean really, have you seen the chest bumps? They do this in women's college basketball. A lot. The chicks who do this make two women tits touching as sexy and hot as The Barefoot Contessa and her husband kissing.

What makes women's basketball even more painful to watch is that I am pretty sure me and four members from either my 1996 UMass Intramural team or one of my Melrose High Faculty teams (Brennan would be a must. You too Wall and Turner) would defeat Oklahoma. In fact, it pains me to watch these women so much that I'm pretty sure I could beat them at anything. I know I sound like a younger, but equally ignorant version of Bobby Riggs, but I'm not letting these women beat me. At anything. It can be a three point contest, a speed skating race, a table tennis game, Boggle, a free throw shooting competition, Name That Tune, a hot dog eating contest (although that linebackery chick on Oklahoma could probably take me down), or even a sprint. It doesn't matter what we play, but I gotta say, I'm not losing to these chicks. At anything. I mean c'mon, imagine losing to Rebecca Lobo at ANYTHING?!? I'd have to let one of you kill me after that (no shortage of volunteers there, I'm sure)!

I know this sounds outrageous, but I feel this way. I really do. I wish it weren't, but it is. Part of the problem is that the media is shoving women's basketball down our throats and TRYING to make it happen. It's like Gretchen Wieners in Mean Girls trying to make Fetch happen. It's just not going to work. I have a hard enough time watching mens college basketball (I'll save that for a March 2010 post. But seriously, take the brackets and gambling out of mens college basketball and what do you have? Lots of guys who can't shoot and turn the ball over way too much) as it is painful to watch any sport that is NOT played at the highest level. Yeah, I like they they play with "heart" and for the love of the game, but when you have the NBA to watch on another channel, why would I watch a lesser brand of the same game? I know people hate on the NBA and that's fine, but you hate on it for all the wrong reasons. I want to watch something played at the highest possible level. Why do you think no one goes out to Hillview to watch a bunch of old guys hit worm burners from the first tee?!? Because it sucks. Just like women's basketball sucks. And you want heart? Go watch a little league game.

I wish women's basketball would take a cue from the MLS and realize that they have a niche audience (although, apparently, that "niche" audience is made up of 138 people because word is the WNBA is officially done) and stick with that. Let the folks at Stanford, Tennessee and UConn enjoy their women's hoops, but for the love of god, stop shoving it down our throats because we just don't care. And ESPN, just stop it. Please. No one who lives outside Storrs, CT cares about the UConn perfect season.

I really want to support it, but I feel like I'm saying (writing) what so many people feel, but are too afraid to say. And as I write this, I realize it's not solely about the fact that it is women's basketball so much as it is a game that is played at an inferior level (it's the same reason why I don't watch Sci-Fi Channel horror films like Sasquatch Attacks II). I might like it more if it wasn't so in our faces. I mean, we got a woman Speaker of the House. Isn't that enough for you chicks?

Well, there goes my three female readers. Thanks for supporting me ladies! It's been a trip!

Say What?

As I was sitting in a middle school meeting today wondering who was worse, Scott Boras, Julia Roberts, Idi Amin, that dude who played Shaggy in the movie version of Scooby Doo, Chris Daughtry, Voldemort, Spencer Pratt, Anderson Varejao, Amon Goeth, or the lady chairing the meeting, I heard someone utter the phrase, "we're going through a transition period with the seventh grade English class." And I got really irritated.

Because I fucking hate the phrase, "transition period."

There are trends for everything. Shoes, music, home decor, restaurants, jeans, alcoholic beverages, handbags, travel spots. There are even trends for baseball offensive approaches. And it appears that there are even trends for phrases. And "transition period" is one of those trendy phrases.

Was this phrase used fifteen years ago? Do you remember the bouncer at Time Out saying, "Oh no. We can't let you in this week. Ever since the ABC fined us for being over capacity, we have been in a transition period."

I'm not sure when I first heard this phrase, but in drives me fucking nuts. And what does it even mean? I know it usually carries a negative connotation. In fact, people whisper the phrase when the talk about someone who is in transition. On my therapists website, she advertises herself as a therapist for "men in tansition." And if you're in therapy, things can't be going too well. And so if one of the reason you might be in therapy is because you are "in transition," then transition can't be good, right?

Anyways, if someone actually knows what this phrase means, could you fill me in please? In the meantime, here are a bunch of other phrases (trendy and old) that I A) Don't get or B) Hate because they were created by pseudo intellectual fucksticks.

Boys Will Be Boys: Usually, this is uttered by someone with the IQ of a chalkboard. It is also usually used to describe a completely reprehensible and entirely unacceptable social behavior perpertrated by an idiot dude. I'm not sure what makes me angrier, the fact that people actually believe this statement or the fact that people think it is a rational answer to irrational acts.

At The End Of The Day: This is usually used for sports arguments. "At the end of the day, who do you want in your lineup, Jason Bay or Manny Ramirez?" Well, what day is it? Is it the day of the seventh game of the world series? Or is it a regular old day that will be a lot like the day that is coming tomorrow? Days are short and they are repetitive and they are awfully similar. Shouldn't we say, at the end a generation? Or even, at the end of humanity? Like, "at the end of humanity, who do you want in your starting rotation?

It's Like Comparing Apples To Oranges: In case you haven't noticed, apples and oranges are awfully similar. Both fruits. Both edible. Both sweet. They are one color away on the rainbow. They are roughly the same shape. They are roughly the same size. They grow on trees. They are in fact, almost exactly alike. Short of Dermot Mulroney and Dylan McDermott, I can't think of two things more similar.

Live Free Or Die: Are you really serious still keeping this around New Hampshire? I didn't know Tianemen Square had been moved to downtown Portsmouth.

I Threw Out My Back: Is this a medical term? Or was you back stale and moldy and had thus become detritus and needed to be placed in a garbage pail? Or does it just mean your back hurts? My back hurts all the time, but I don't think I threw it out, mostly because I don't know what that means. And on Saturdays, when I drink 12 PBRs and wash them down with a pair of espressos martinis and wake up the next morning and my head hurts, did I throw out my head?

I Don't Like Surprises: So, on the fun scale, you fall somewhere between Malaria and prison sex? I mean really, who doesn't like surprises? When has the phrase, "I have a surprise for you" ever been followed by something bad? Do they same people who don't like surprises also not like ice cream, dodgeball, flip cup, and Morgan Freeman? Surprises are awesome. Except if you're Stephen Rea in The Crying Game.

I'm So Tired: Oh, you are? Because I'm fully and totally rested after my twelve hours of sleep yesterday.

I Don't Watch TV: I must admit, I am a recovering "I don't watch TV" sayer. But then I realized that it was idiotic, because although I have no idea at what time and on what channel CSI and Law and Order are, I watch more TV than Floyd in True Romance. When people say this, they are trying to talk down to you, but what they really mean is, "Oh damn. I wish I could be part of this conversation about The Bachelor because I kind of want to be, but instead I was trying to make Rogue Waves: The Science of Tsunamis happen on Nat Geo so I could feel good about myself." Admit it people. You watch TV. That's all you do. And if you aren't, what exactly are you doing from 9-11 on Tuesday's? Playing in a floor hockey league? Reading Us Weekly? Or splitting the atom?

I Feel So Bloated Right Now: You're not bloated. You just feel fat because you washed down that big beef cheeseburger and crinkle cut fries with a Jim Dandy. So either go vomit or starve yourself tomorrow. Either way, you're fat. Deal with it.

I'm too old. I Just Can't Do That Anymore: Usually in response to someone who states that they drank both Friday AND Saturday night. Translation: My life is miserable right now. I really wish I could have been with you drinking Friday and Saturday night. But I'm old as fuck now.

I Don't Feel Good: A more genralized version of "I threw out my back" and "I'm so tired." Still, I don't know what this means. Does your stomach hurt? Because my stomach hurt once. I had to stay in for recess because of it.

People In Glass Houses Shouldn't Throw Stones: Why would someone in a house be throwing stones? Where did the get the stones? Do they have a little brook in their glass house? Or a stone wall? And who throws stones anymore anyways? The last time I heard people throwing stones was in that short story The Lottery.

I Could Care Less: So, what you're saying is that you do actually care about said subject SOMEWHAT because if you COULD care less, then there is- in fact- something that you could care less about than the subject currently being discussed.

Bringing Closure To This: Closure? What? Have we really made this a word? A word we actually use? Who made this up? The same people who name their kids Blake Alexander the Third? And is there closure? Once someone says we are bringing closure to something, is it closed? Can I not think of it anymore? Can I bring it up again? Because closed just means temporarily shut down. Like JC Penny closes, but then opens back up. Should we say, "Bringing Chapter 11 To This..." Would that make more sense? It might.

Anyways, consider this topic closed. Or closurered. Or something.

Of Monsters And Ghosts; Steroids And Cheating; Bar And Hotness; And Facebook

So this is going to sound ridiculous and I'm having a lot of trouble expressing my opinion clearly, but the use of steroids in baseball is NOT cheating. Cheating is the wrong word. I'm not sure what the right word is, but here's my logic: The using of anabolic steroids- yes, I understand they are an illegal drug- was not OUTLAWED by major league baseball while it was happening. In fact, baseball may have loved it. The Sosa/McGwire home run chase saved baseball post strike and fans were turning out in record numbers during the "steroid era" (such a stupid name by the way), so clearly, these same fans that are crying now about "cheating" were NOT crying then. Maybe we were all naive and convinced ourselves it wasn't happening, but it was. And it probably happens in every sport. Yeah, we can be outraged and hurt, but millions of dollars are at stake for these players and any edge they can gain, they WILL gain. Particularly when their sport says that steroids are NOT illegal. Again, I understand the outrage, given the historical pedestal we put baseball on (and I like that by the way- it's the only sport where you can talk about players from different eras and NOT have it be a ridiculously stupid conversation), but it's not cheating. I guess I think of cheating as something that is deliberately and knowingly done by a person who KNOWS that they are cheating (dealing off the bottom of the deck, lying about your golf score, pretending you hid a five hundred under the board in Monopoly as a "savings"). While these guys KNEW they were taking an illegal drug, the sport they played said it was okay, so why not do it....?

Down year for movies was 2008. There were a lot of solid films and nothing I loathed like Juno and Little Miss Sunshine, but in comparison to recent best picture nominees like Sideways, Million Dollar Baby, Michael Clayton, No Country For Old Men and should have been nominee United 93, 2008 just didn't make the grade. I have been happy to see that some critics agree. That said, Slumdog is awesome. So is The Wrestler. They take genres I usually loathe (feel good flicks, sports movies) and do a great job with them. And there's somethng to be said for that. My guilty pleasure pick for '08 though was Cloverfield. I wish more horror movies were like that.....

Mark down June 4th on your calendar. TV On The Radio. That will be a good two weeks for me because in case you haven't heard, this band I like is playing May 23rd...

Speaking of live music, Coldplay's awesomeness kind of makes me want to make the trek down to TVFKAGW (The Venue Formerly Known As Great Woods) for the first time in som ten years.....

Somervillians and Cambridgians. Please. I'm begging you. Get off your fucking bikes. It's snowing and 7 degrees out. I'll buy you The Charlie Card...

Okay, so KG is out three weeks. It could be worse. When the injury first happened, I thought it was the dreaded ruptured achilles (I have a zen like ability to guess
when a player has the ruptured achilles. At first I thought it was because I had the closest thing to that, but then I realized tha I could tell it was a ruptured achilles by the fact that Player X was writhing around on the ground holding his achilles), but it appears to be a less than major knee issue. Keep in mind, he missed nine games last year, which is about three weeks and I think we know how things played out for last years Celtics. My boys P Squared and Ray Ray will step it up though, don't you worry. I say they go 8-3 without him.....

The antithesis of these Celtics might be your 2009 Boston Red Sox. Seriously, is there a more boring team in sport? Their infield on most nights will be Varitek, Youk, Pedroia, Lowrie, and Lowell. Or, The All Gerard Hate Them Because They Are So Goddman White And Boring Team. It's going to be tough to watch and root for them every night.....

Flight Of The Conchords continues to dominate television. It is so funny ("that's quite an accent you got there Kevina") and so original that it is getting to the point where I might not be able to be friends with you if you don't like the show. And even better, it helped me to understand Donny Marshall's "kiwi" reference he made in regards to a New Zealand born hoop player the other day. See, I don't have to travel the world to be cultured. All I have to do is watch trendy HBO TV shows that poseurs like me can blog about.....

So, I was thinking of making this a separate post and I may yet do that, but it will bring about considerable ire when I do so and I don't know if I'm in the mood to defend myself, but I've got some problems with Facebook. Firstly, I'm not on it because I don't need the drama, but I must admit being somewhat fascinated by it. However, here's my major beef with it: People lie about why they like it. They say it allows them to "keep in touch with people." C'Mon folks. Are you REALLY going to lie to yorselves like that? Here's why people have a Facebook: To look into the lives of "old" friends and to give people the opportunity to talk about themselves (no one cares that you're tired today!). The first part is self explanatoy, but what I mean by the second part is that Facebook gives us all the chance to participate in our favorite collective past time: One upping each other. We can post pictures of ourselves in the south of France, discuss our awesome jobs, display our ecclectic tastes in music or movies, or list our numerous degrees. And that's fine. Everyone likes to talk about themselves. But I would prefer it if people stopped calling it a "social networking" site. It is a place to talk about yourself, end of conversation. I mean, who would ever create a page on the internet about themselves, their thoughts, and their opinions?!? So arrogant.....

So I'm driving down the highway the other day and I pass a Spag's truck!!! What the fuck?!? That store still exists?!? I remember their god awful commercials from like 25 years ago. They are still in business? Where are they located? And what the hell do they even sell? And why didn't Bear Stearns steal their business plan?!? Worst economy in four score and fucking Spag's is still in existence. Unbelievable.....

While on the subject of advanced degrees, head over to Bukowski's some Tuesday night around 11. That is the night the Harvard Business School guys go in for post class drinks (the waitress informed me of such). Stumbled in there after a movie the other night and thought I was in the Bizarro Star Wars Cantina. Instead of everyone being from a different planet, it looked like they were all from the same parents. 6'3", good lucking, fit, well dressed, and surpremely obnoxious (complete with a guy who WAS the clone of the Jewish dude in Bolier Room kicking in the headlight of a random car). I didn't know whether to kill them or kill myself. I probably would have went with killing myself though because after they all got done beating me up, they probably would have beat me at Jeopardy! and Scrabble!. But hey, at least I can beat them at... NHL 95 maybe.....?

So I'm trying a new stategy in Fantasy basbeall this year since I haven't won since 1997 (That's a net loss of about $4800) and that strategy is to not read a single stupid fantasy magazine or web site. I can't take the guys they "hype" and the sleepers they tell me to pick who then spend the year sleeping statistically. Yet another reason why I need Dr. Emmet Brown and his DeLorean time machine: So I can hit the pedal to 88 and go back to about 1994 and write a fantasy magazine where I make up the stats of a guy. I can say he is going to do the next year without having any scientific proof of those predictions whatsoever and it'll sell tons of copies....

Got into a fun discussion with my bro and some of his friends the other night about scary movies and where we come down on them. It appears you are either scared by the ghost concept or the monster concept. The insane killer briefly entered the conversation and they can be scary particularly when it is a film like The Strangers, but for too many of these insane killer movies, the killer is an indestructible man who walks faster than Usain Bolt runs. So we leveled it down to ghost and monster movies and the type that scares you is the one that you find more plausible. So, with that in mind, what is more plausible, cave dwelling creatures or a little girls who walks out of your TV? C'mon now people... It's cave dwelling monsters in a landslide. That's why The Descent is the best horror move ever....

I'll see the G.I. Joe movie. I hope it is as good as some of the cartoon episodes though.....

The four songs that NEED to be on rock band are "Blank Slate" by You Know Who, The Killer's version of "Shadowplay", "7/4 (Shoreline)" by Broken Social Scene, and Ion Square" by Bloc Party. And here's why: Each song has a ridiculous mini jam that would be so fun to rock out to. They are awesome little jams that are not overly long, like a Slash guitar solo. Don't believe me? Go to the 5:10 mark of "Ion Square," the 3:11 mark of 7/4, the 2:59 mark of "Shadowplay," and the 1:51 mark of "Blank Slate." You'll feel like a air guitar god rocking out to these in your car or bedroom.....

I try to keep this apolitical, but here's why I am a democrat: Because republicans are awful people. It is a fct that we have the worst economic crisis in 80 years and republicans are UNANIMOUSLY voting against a stimulus package because it was created by the rock star democratic president they despise. On the other hand, democrats always voted for the War In Iraq and funding for troops... Because it was the right thing to do. No one understands partisan poitics better than me and I rooted against the last administration with a Michael Moore fervor at some points, but the stubbornness on display right now is disgraceful. Let that nonsense stay with the Michael Moore's of the world. I thought REAL politicans were above that stuff (as dems were during the Iraq War votes), but leave it to the worthless republicans to be their usual worthless selves.....

Bar Rafaeli, congratulations. You've cracked my top five. And what has been really fun about this is that some girls have been hating on her. My sister said she "might be the hottest girl at Whiskey Park." Sure, and girls love other girls, just as I've always said.....

The rest of the Top 5? It's always changing and it probably needs to be like a top 150, but Megan Fox is obviously there. Miranda Kerr would be too. Brooke Burke might make it there for nostalgia purposes. Then it's probably Rachel Bilson because I think she'd like me if she met me. I have nothing to base this on, other than my insanity.....

A dark horse candidate has ALWAYS been Kelly Monaco. Loved her since she showed up on DWTS.....

Okay, here are my predictions... Best Pic: Slumdog; Best Actor: Penn; Best Actress: Winslet; Best Supporting Actress: Penlope Cruz; Best Supporting Actor: Heath (bold prediction there); Best Director: Danny Boyle. And I like to think I know something about movies andI probably THINK I know more than I actually DO, but if Slumdog DOESN'T win for Best Editing, then I know absolutely nothing about film.....

Finally, big congrats to my friends Waidehi and Steve on the birth of their beautiful daughter, Leela. Also, congrats to my boy Brennan on his engagement to Andrea. They are two couples that I respect and I truly believe have found their partner's for life. One of these days, I will call them all and congratulate them verbally. That will probably be the same day that I turn into a good kid.....

And if you have absolutey nothing to do (and I mean nothing... If Hoosiers or Pale Rider is on and you just opened a bottle of wine, that's a way, WAY btter option) next Saturday, February 28th at 5:30 and you feel like taking a drive to Ipswich High School, there is this one act play being performed as part of a competition. The play, titled PS was co-written by my good friend Dave McLoughlin and some middle aged guy who writes a blog named after a quote from a dated Vince Vaughn flick. Don't expect Good Will Hunting people. In fact, if this thing is even thismuch better than Xanadu, I'll be immensely pleased. You know what? I should probably get on Facebook and tell eveyone about this, shouldn't I?

MAY 23rd!!!!!

Yup, The House of Blues. Tickets go on sale Saturday. Come one, come all. It's a Saturday. It's the spring. It'll be the best night of music you've ever experienced. Seriously. I'll pay for your ticket if you disagree. I literally can't function thinking about it. I hope I don't get hit by a bus before then.

84 days and counting... Here's a sample (but I saved "Mr. November" and "Fake Empire" because I really feel like you need to see them in person and just be overwhelmed) ...



And another...



Okay, just one more...

28: The New Mid Life Crisis

I like Valentine's Day. Mostly because it afford me the opportunity to talk about one of my favorite subjects.

Relationships.

One would think that someone who enjoys discussing relationships as much as I do would be good at them. But I am not. There is an infinite list of people who will confirm that (one has been an occassional guest commenter right here on this very site). But hey, at least I am pretty good at picking out gifts. No gift cards here. i even know sizes and styles. Must be that sexual ambiguity that makes me so good at this.

But anyways, I love discussing relationships. And with February 14th approaching. I was afforded the opportunity recently to discuss relationships. And my favorite subject came up.

The Magic 28 Theory.

Creative, the name isn't. And scientifically proven, the theory has not been, but it's right.

Before I get to The Magic 28 Theory, we all know that the divorce rate is 50% in America. A quick google search (what did we do pre-google? That needs to be some sort of historical abbreviation. Like BC and AD, we need a BG and AG) of marital studies say that the frequently cited reasons for divorce are: Lack of commitment to the marriage, lack of communication between spouses, infidelity, alcohol addiction, substance abuse, physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional abuse, inability to manage or resolve conflict, differences in personal and career goals financial problems, different expectations about household tasks (this is my favorite one), different expectations about having or rearing children, interference from parents or in-laws (hilarious), lack of maturity, intellectual incompatibility, sexual incompatibility, religious conversion or religious beliefs, cultural and lifestyle differences, inability to deal with each other’s petty idiosyncrasies (imagine telling your husband/wife, "I'm leaving you because you eat your peas one at a time."), criminal behavior and incarceration for crime.

While all of these are valid and reasonable (particularly incarceration) explanations for divorce, the real reason why everyone gets divorced is much more simple.

We marry the wrong person.

Often we marry the wrong person because we panic. And this panic usually sets in right around... The age of 28. Because when we are this age and single, it seems that everyone around said us is either A) married or B) getting married. And because all of the people surrounding us are in one of these two situations, we decide that it is also time for us to get married. Partner be damned.

But why 28 you ask. Why not 26 or 30?

At 26, you are still young enough to "find someone" and enjoy singledom. It seems that you have your whole life to partner up (but really, society says you only have two years). So 26 is too young.

And 30? Isn't that a tough age for everyone?

Well, at thirty, you are over being... 28. And so you have a bit more confidence and a bit more of an ability to realize, "yes, I can do this."

You've ikely been paying rent for awhile, managing your student loans, making a car payment, and pretty much manuevering through the rolling sea that is life. I'm not saying you have it all figured out at 30, but you are somewhat more aware of yourself and maybe even more comfortable with yourself (at what age will I be comfortable with my abs and teeth?).

But at 28? You have nothing figured out. And to make matters worse, society says you should because... Well, because everybody does, don't they?

But we don't.

And that's why at this Magic 28 Age, we marry whatever might be convenient. We do this for a variety of reasons, but the main reason we get married at 28 is the pressure. Even though we have progressed enough as a society to put a black man in The White House, we haven't progressed enough to tell people (particularly women) that it is okay to be over 28 and unmarried. And that is flabbergasting because we spend our whole lives telling our students and children that we should find true love. Think about it...

From the youngest of ages, we smack people around with the idea of love. Be it Barbie and Ken (even they broke up) or Luke and Laura (their wedding is only relevant to people my age and older), we are given the ideas and images of relationships almost as soon as we can read. From there, we are hit with all manner of relationship mumbo jumbo, be it movies (Can't Buy Me Love showed me that I couldn't buy one), periodicals (read the cover of Seventeen the next time you are in CVS), or CW television shows until we graduate to the biggest day in our relationship existence: The prom.

From there, we move to college where we experience all manner of "relationships" (there is so much I could say right here, but because of my lack of professional status at LHS, I'll refrain but for this: What is the status of a relationship when the central entrance is a window?). It is in fact the frequent matra of college kids to not WANT a relationship because, you know... It's college.

And after college, we pretty much continue the same behavior because, you know, we just... Graduated from college. Some of us find meaningful relationships in college and some of us even decide to marry those college girlfriends or boyfriends (personal experience tells me this is not a good idea), but for many of us, the post college experience is a time to enjoy life as if you were in college only with earlier wake-ups, fewer papers, and more money.

During the years between 0-27, many of us are single for good stretches of time and save for the prom night you were dateless and listening to The Cure and plotting ways to kill ourselves, we are pretty much okay with it. In fact, some of us LOVE singledom, particularly when we FINALLY make that decision to pitch that bitch/dickhead.

And why do we have no problem with being single between the ages of 0-27? Because absolutely everyone around us and more importanly the ENTIRE AMERICAN CULTURE/SOCIETY HAS ABSOLUTELY NO PROBLEM WITH ANYONE BETWEEN THE AGES OF 0-27 BEING SINGLE!!!

Think about it. Everyone supports you when you are single at those ages. When you go crying to your guidance counselor (this is the only time they do work by the way ;)) about getting dumped, they tell you, "it's okay... You'll find someone else." When you get pitched in college, your friends say, "you were way too good for him anyways." And when you break up with your post college girlfriend, people say, "dude, she was kind of a bitch... And also, I never told you this but... She was kinda a butterface."

Whoa, sorry. I think it is just me who heard that one.

Anyways, we are totally, utterly, and completed supported when we are single for those 27 years. Sure, there are some nights when we feel left out because all of our friends are out with their significant others, but there was always those one, two, or three guys/girls we could hang out with, even if it meant scrolling through your phone to your group of second tier friends.

But all of a sudden, when 28 hits, you HAVE to find someone.

You can feel it creeping in at 27 and the fact that you have a wedding every other weekend (seriously, do you remember how many weddings you had at that age?!? At 35, I've been to three weddings in the last four years) sure MAKES it seem like that you HAVE to find someone, doesn't it?

But you don't.

Only there is no one telling you that you DON'T have to find someone. In fact, the direct opposite begins to happen. You start scrolling match.com and wonder if 8 Minute Dating is for you. You REALLY like the guy your friend says you should meet because, wow, he likes ice cream and the beach JUST LIKE YOU!!!

And then you convince yourself that maybe your standards are a bit too high and that you probably shoud have given that guy with the tassels on his shoes one more date because MAYBE you would have developed feelings for him (what the hell does this mean by the way?!? Humans can tell within approximately four seconds if they want to be with someone... Either you want to have crazy wild sex with them or you don't. Sexual attraction doesn't "develop." Just ask the Tennis Girl from UMass. Regardless of how charming I was, she wasn't going to sleep with my Masshole self.).

It's painful and while I wish we were strong enough to fight this and be confident in our singledom, but not all of us are. And the reason we can't be is that sociaty absolutely does not let us feel confident about being 28+ and being single. Oh, Sex And The City tried, but it was too outnumbered by the Wedding Section at Barnes And Noble, biological clocks, and preposterous garbage like Bride Wars. In fact, didn't Sex And The City end with a marriage?!? Even that caved.

And by the way, this may sound like I am only talking about women, but I'm not. Guys are just as bad, just as self conscious, just as scared of being alone. But instead of wedding movies to motivate us to get married, we have Fat Guy With Pretty Girl sitcoms to motivate us to get married. You guys have dress shopping and menu selection to get you excited for the prospect of marriage, we men have a weekly card game with our four buddies to get us excited for marriage.

My point? As Valentines Day approaches, I know that it is not easy to be 28+ and single. But it's also okay. Maybe nobody has told you that. I sometimes think that nobody told me it was okay because they were strangely envious of what I had. Not that they were jealous of the fact that I was a "swinging single," but jealous of the fact that I could be strong enough to be in my 30s and be by myself. I always had the sense that some people (not everyone mind you) wished they could do it too. Be alone and be comfortable with it.

Because you should be comfortable with it.

Because it's okay.

I mean, you could be having dinner with tassel shoe boy this weekend, right? And how is that better than getting really drunk (read: Are you alone this Valentines Day? Four words. Best. Singles. Night. Ever.) with a couple friends and then going home and watching Love Actually?

It isn't.

And I wish more people told us this.

Could I Have Soda, Seven, Or Even Apple Please?!?

I ought to make some enemies with this one.

But I can't take it anymore.

I absolutely despise the baby names selected by my generational peers.

I mean I despise them. REALLY despise them. More than bicyclists and anal fissures.

I'm not sure when I first noticed this and why it bothers me so much. Like anything that others like, why can't I just let it go? As I have morphed into middle age, I have let the inane actions, interests, and habits of others annoy me much less frequently. Sure, the movie going habits of America fascinates me and the love that still exists for things like 24, 80s comedies, classic rock, and Bill Belichick annoy me beyond belief.

But for the most part, I can let stuff go now. While James Petterson books, Ugg Boots, and chain restaurants certainly aren't for me, I understand the appeal/ease/practicality of them all.

But I cannot excuse the baby names. I want to. I try to. But I cannot.

I've tried to understand why the annoy me so much. Is it the type of person who would name their kid Jaxson (#6 on the list of 2008 Most Popular Boy Names) that annoys me? Is it the fact that The Hills is now not only influencing fashion, but names (Brody is #45 on the list)? Or is it the fact that an Eric Clapton song is the best my generation can do for inspiration (Layla: #24)?

Whatever it is, I can't take it.

But more to the point, how can OTHERS take it? Where is the outrage? Where is the anger? Where is the originality of my generational peers that I love and respect so much? We are so many things. We are great actors like Pitt, Leo, Depp, and Tiffani Amber Thiessen. We are great musicians like The National, Coldplay, and the guy who sang "Here Comes The Hotstepper." We wrote Twilight, Harry Potter, and that really great book where if you think it, it will happen.

We are the same people that made TV On The Radio's Dear Scientist the album of the year in Spin AND Rolling Stone. We are the generation that created Lost, Seven, the Scene It? board game, google, all those awesome VW commericals, and The BK Triple Stacker. We elected the first black president, the first female Speaker of the House, and we got Donald Rumsfeld fired. We perfected texting, inventing beer funnelling, and took drinking games to a new level. We are great.

Except when it comes to names.

We (and I mean the collective, societal, we) seem to only like very specific names.

For example, we love names that end in an nnn sound. Be it Aiden (your #1 ladies and gentlemen), Ethan (#2), Kaden (#4), Brayden (#6), Landon (#8), Madelyn (#3), Caitlin (#13), Addison (#14), Benjamin (#12), Gavin (#15), or Tristan (#19), we really seem to love that hard N sound and I'm not sure why.

We have also taken a liking to biblical names (I blame the stupid south for this) like Elijah (#17), Gabriel (#16), Jacob (#7), and Noah (#3). Is this because so many of us Gen Xers struggle with religion and what it means to us and so this is how we make up? Or do we just like guys with wizard beards who like to ride around in big boats with multiple sets of animals?

And then there's the girls names. Now, I know that it is pretty much only women who read fiction, but do they only read Harlequin Romance novels? Because when I see names like Bella, Peyton, Scarlett, and Charlotte, all I can think of is these women in mid 19th century garb getting pounded by the chimney sweeper's purple headed warrior in a field of barley.

Or perhaps the stripper culture- which has made Jenna Jameson a household name- has so infested our society that we think Ruby, Brooklyn, Aurora, Jazmine, and Izabella (all in the top 50) are all acceptable names? Do the parents of these daughters WANT to see their girls swinging around on a pole in 18 years as Warrant's "Cherry Pie" booms from the speakers? Because you are pretty much choosing your destiny for your daughter when you drop Aurora on her shortly after she fires out of the birth canal. Hopefully, the parents were just big Foo Fighters fans, but I'm not holding my breath.

And when we are not dropping stripper or bible names on our kids, we seem to like the names of people from Arthur Miller plays (Abigail: #5), curmudgeonly British bands (Liam: #9), Matt Damon and Ben Affleck movies (Will: #21), and MTV Shows (Aubrey: #15). We also get influences from JD Salinger (Holden. Are people aware he's narrating from a loony bin?), Milwaukee Brewer first basemen (Cooper), state capitals (Austin), Peanuts Cartoons (Lucy), and Roger Clemens (Kole, Kadence, Kaden... Why does everyone love strikeouts so much?!?).

And when we're out of inspiration, we make stuff up like Colton (is that an engine part?), Fynn, and Asher (did they think that former A List Guy on Punk'd whose now married to a coug was Asher, not Ashton?)

Of course, I understand that people want to be different. That much is obvious. I also understand that as we age, we find "old" names to be hilarious and at times, unusable (at my uncle's funeral a couple of weeks ago, we found out that my uncle through marriage had a sister named Priscilla whom everybody called Pussy... True story. Even my mother laughed.), but isn't there some sort of compromise? While I anticipate that Blanche will never return and that Dick (my middle name btw) has been retired for good, what ever happened to Tom, Matt, Brian, Kevin, Jen, Sarah, or Lauren? Or even the less heard, but still popular names of our youth like Derek and Leslie? Where did those go? Are they so awful? Or are they just so... Regular.

And I think that's it. My generational peers (who are now more educated, more wealthy, more aware) don't want their kids to be... Heaven forbid... REGULAR! Everyone wants their kid to be talking first, pottying first, or reading first (Yes Petey and Paula Parent, we understand your child is so smart... We've never heard anyone say anything BUT their child is smart). They want their kids to have SOME talent that's why we run around driving our kids to piano, karate, dancing, hockey, and guitar. And what better way to insure your kids success than to give them a GREAT, ORIGINAL, NOT REGULAR name?

Because while we could all name an awesome Darren (McFadden), Kim (Kardashian), or Amy (Adams), we all somewhere in our lives met a horrible Darren, Kim, or Amy. Maybe Darren was the kid who smoked during lunch and flunked out of your high school; Kim was the girl who had that really big blumpkin ass; and Amy was the girl who had her period on the chair in sixth grade.

But whatever each of these names lives in infamy in our respective minds for, we CANNOT get that out of our heads. And so why would we want to call our daughter for breakfast every morning by a name that reminds us of the kid who was thrown in the trash barrel at lunch in sophomore year?

And so that part, I get. But I wish we could really get over that because all the cutesy Irish names with the hard N sound are making me really sick. And I just wish that everybody realized that their Caleb, Connor, Sophia, and Emma will be the next generations Bob, Brian, Sue, and Nicole. They will be just regular, common names, held by regular, common people (name your next kid Mitch... No one will have it!). Let's just hope for the sake of all the Ava's (the number one name in America for 2008 AND 2007) out there, that Ava doesn't suddenly become slang for fuck.

"See that hottie in the little skirt over there?!? I Ava'ed the SHIT out of her Friday night!"

Because if that happens, it's bye, bye Ava because you've become the new Dick.

Be Kind... Watch It!

Warning: If you hate Michael Gondry (#68 on SWPL), do not read this blog. If you have absolutely no idea who Michael Gondry is, he has directed the films Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind, The Science of Sleep, and Dave Chapelle's Block Party. If you have heard of none of these films, know that they are weird, as is the film you are about to read about (especially the first twenty minutes). So with that in mind, feel free to skip this post and read a classic from the archives, like the one about apple picking. You may also skip this post if you hate when I refer to movies as films or if your favorite movie is Gladiator or Fletch or if you are so serious and curmudgeonly that you go around and tell little kids that Santa Claus isn't real.

You are about to get your second consecutive upbeat post. This is a bigger upset than USA 4 CCCP 3.

I have found comedy genius. It is Be Kind Rewind.

We all know my lamenting of the state of film comedy (the woes continue even before I watch the written and produced by Judd Apatow and Seth Rogen Pineapple Express, which runs 130 minutes! Will someone hire these guys an editor!!! Austin Powers ran 94 minutes men!!!), particularly when discussing the recent spate of "wild romps" that seem to hit the theaters every six months. And so it is with great pleasure that I recommend to you all Michael Gondry's Be Kind Rewind. This is the hardest I've laughed since Napoleon Dynamite.

Some of you may have heard of Be Kind Rewind, others may have seen it, and most of you probably heard of it and know the premise, but failed to check it out. You also probably know that it has annoying Jack Black and that rapper dude who showed up as Chappelle's Head of CIA in his Black Bush skit. You need to put your preconceived notions about both of these guys aside. While I love Mos Def (#69 on SWPL!), I loathe Jack Black when he is in something not called High Fidelity. While he is being Jack Blacky for parts of the movie, most of the time you don't notice him because you are laughing at the absolutely incredible writing ("We're gonna get caught... When Ms. Falewicz sees it, she's gonna know it's fake because our version is like twenty minutes") or the preposterous visuals. While I often make grandiose statements about how much I dislike so and so for not liking so and so that I liked, I literally DARE you to not laugh at the Ghostbusters (the copy machine part... MY GOD!!!) scene. You've heard this song before yes, but those five minutes are what great writing and great acting are all about. And there's not a dick reference in sight.

But it is not just the five minutes that are hilarious. Without giving away too much, Be Kind Rewind makes camouflage, collanders, magnetism, illiteracy, negative light, and a shopowners discovery of DVDs absolutely hilarious. It also invents the funniest word I've ever heard; one that I can't wait to start using in my everyday lingo.

But along with being absolutely hysterical, Be Kind Rewind is also a strangely uplifting and inspiring film. Maybe it is the fact that our new President so firmly believes in unity and I buy that, but Be Kind Rewind was powerful. By no means does this movie turn into something it is not advertised as, like the lame comedies Wedding Crashers and Knocked Up, but it does something magical at the end without being at all cheesey. And that made me love it all the more.

While watching Be Kind Rewind, I thought often of The Big Lebowski, not because they are alike (although they have equally hilarious scenes), but because of how they were (are) later viewed. I feel like Be Kind Rewind will follow a similar path to Lebowski as it is a movie that opened with little fanfare and mixed reviews (52 on metacritic), yet will likely be extremely appreciated by people as word of mouth spreads. While it will take ten years to measure this, I truly believe that Be Kind Rewind will be a cult classic.

Be Kind Rewind is ambitious and some criticisms of it are understandable (lengthier clips of their "films" would have been nice), but some of the hatred directed towards it is misguided at best and 100% wrong at worst. Be Kind Rewind will have it's haters. Stupid people who laugh at Scary Movie 2 and flock to see Marley And Me will hate this movie. They are also the same people who find Napoleon unfunny. I don't want to simply call them stupid, but I will say that haters of this movie might have a sense of humor that is not overly... Mature. And like The Coen Brothers almost eleven years ago, Michael Gondry has a built in group of haters who find his work random (Be Kind Rewind is that at times, but not nearly as often as many films are) and overrated. But if people can get past that and past his pretentiousness, they will find a movie that if given the chance, is absolutely hilarious.

I wavered on whether or not to even post this blog as my hype will now ultimately lead to disappointment, but with that said, try not to go in thinking you're watching the second coming of your favorite Seinfeld episode. However, if you love movies, want to laugh, and can be unserious for a bit, this film needs to be seen. Even if you don't laugh (which you will at at a random black dude channeling his inner Sigourney Weaver), you at least have to appreciate Be Kind Rewind, because I really have seen nothing like it in recent cinema.

And until you see it, here's a taste:

Jerry: Walking down the street, and you see a little ghost, what you gonna do about... GHOSTBUSTERS!!! That's the theme to Ghostbusters...

Mike: No it's not...

Jerry: I'm pretty sure it is...

See it. Love it. And don't be so serious all the time.

PS- Running time: 100 minutes...

In Praise Of My Boy

I know that I am a combination baseball/music/movie/jeans/beer elitist. And for years, I wished I could be a literary elitist.

I wished I could sit in in an advanced graduate course at Harvard and discuss A Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Man and The Sound and The Fury. But I just never could.

One, because I have never read those books and two, because, if I did, I likely wouldn't get them.

And so for a long time, I had this literature envy. I'm not really sure why though because most of the young English teachers I've met (loyal readers not included!) are pretentious tools who probably became English teachers to feel important because they didn't date anyone while in high school (is that why I want to be an English teacher?)

But, after years of therapy, I think I'm done with literature envy. And that's why I can say with the utmost confidence that Chuck Klosterman is beyond awesome.

Those in the literature know would likely poo-poo my boy Chuck because he is A) Not turn of the century and B) Not British.

But there are few contemporary writers like him. While most book snobs wax poetic about dead novelists ("Pushkin so pumps my nads!"), you can still be accepted into the elite world of literature geekdom if you namea living author like Philip Roth or Cormac (Cor-MACK for you uncouth) McCarthy as one of your favorites. But if you drop the names Nick Hornby, Jane Green, or Stephen King at a coffee shop in Cambridge, you just might be shot.

But I am afraid no more. I have no problem admitting that I love "She Drives Me Crazy" and Love Actually, so why shouldn't I admit that my favorite author is a guy who writes essays about Zach Morris and Lloyd Dobler?

My favorite author is Chuck Klosterman and the man is nothing short of genuis.

Recently, I concluded Downtown Owl, his first work of fiction. For the second time. And some days later, I am still wondering how Mitch's little sister is doing and what she might be up to all these years later. I'm wondering if Laidlaw ever got bagged and I want to know if Horace ever forgave himself. I can't say I ever wonder or care what happened to any of the Joads though. And I definitely don't give a flying fuck if Ethan Frome ever got out of his funk or what the hell happened to Pip.

Anytime a writer (song writer, screen writer, author) makes you care about their MADE UP characters, then they have done something right, no? But what also makes Klosterman so amazing is his combination of supremely intelligent wit and total lack of pretentiousness. Like a Family Guy episode, Klosterman makes references that you must be "in the know" to get. But weirdly, they never seem insulting or misplaced. The jokes never run too long or need explaination. Some of this probably has something to do with the fact that the two of us may share brain cells (I really think he'd like me if he met me), but I miss plenty of his references and jokes (he likes 80s hard rock far more than I do). But unlike a Zach Braff witty pop culture reference or a Jim from The Office movie reference, these jokes are always just a wee bit funnier, just a wee bit smarter, and just a whole bit less unforced. As I said, nothing he writes seems out of place, or random. Where people like Zach Braff and Wes Anderson have funny (to them) little vignettes that they like to just randomly throw in to their stories, Klosterman always has an actual story that just happens to have a whole bunch of really funny vignettes thrown into it. That to me is the correct way to create funny.

Chuck is like a combination of unbelievable storytellers. He is the greatest of your story telling pals all rolled into one. He's your drunken Irish uncle, that friend who backpacked by himself through Europe pre email, blog, cell phones, or digital cameras. He's the crazy college guy who was there for seven years (his name was Luds for me), and that guy who frequents the casual encounters list on craigslist. He's got all the great stories. Only he's smarter than than all those story tellers and far more believable. Oh yeah, he's a way better writer than them too.

But Downtown Owl showed that he's more than just a good storyteller with vast knowledge of L.A. Guns albums and a keen eye for the cultural impact of Empire Strikes Back. With his first novel, Chuck shows that he can craft great characters with challenges, strengths, and worries that we can all relate to.

Without giving anything away (but if you like to go in fresh, skip this paragraph), Owl is set in late 1983 and spans just a few months. My boy introduces us to a group of different people living in a tiny town in North Dakota where everyone knows everyone elses business. These people do not know each other personally, but they still know one another via rumor or gossip. And they are all linked by the town they live in and the personal demons and challenges they face.

Klosterman does nothing new, but great writing doesn't always have to do something new. And critics have raised that the book doesn't really have a traditional plot. They are right. It doesn't.

But somehow, Klosterman gets you invested in the characters while also being hilarious (his take on what the twenty students are thinking about during a teacher's interesting lecture is absolutely dead on). He also does something else. He manages to be a guy (shocking revelation) who writes something really funny without having dick jokes, sex jokes, fart jokes, masturbation jokes, or any of the other jokes that males seem to write today. He also didn't write a self help book, a horror story, a legal thriller, a non-fiction piece on the Battle of The Bulge, a book about the 1959 Indiana basketball team, or an inspirational story about who you meet in heaven.

Basically, he wrote an original, funny story that a man hasn't been able to write since Nick Hornby.

Is Klosterman Nick Hornby? No. But I heard one time (in a rejection letter actually) that 87% of all fiction is read by females and thus, a work of fiction by a male author better not be about males, and if it is, it better be about males hunting serial killers.

And so in a day and age where the publishing industry is taking an absolute beating, it's nice to know that there is real talent out there. But more importantly, I hope people realize that there are male writers out there who can write about something other than the Cold War, the 2004 Red Sox, and detectives.

Because there is. His name is Chuck Klosterman.

Read him. And when some stuffwhitepeoplelike white person dumps on your for reading Chuck instead of Kafka, tell them that Chuck's intelligence, humor, and self reflection will bitch slap their pretentiousness anytime.

You rock Chuck.

Absolute Tool

It sure isn't going to be hard hating this guy for the next year.

I know this is going to sound like sour grapes and I'm channeling my inner Molly Leary when I say what I'm about to say, but I never liked Mark Teixeira. And after yesterday's press conference, I fucking hate Mark Teixeira.

The dude is a complete douche bag, tool, loser, chuckah. He's a white (always a big factor in my hatred), pretty boy, tool bag who seems to be overly self important. He's that guy who would be cast in a Vince Vaughn movie as the evil, "other guy," who dates the girl we all want Big T to end up with. I can even picture the tool bag standing next to a handler who is preparing the saddle of a horse "Tex" is about to go riding on. He is outside the barn with his Crest White Strip smile basking in the sun, wearing a yellow polo shirt tucked into pleated khakis, with a navy blue sweater tied around his shoulders.

Tool Tex is everything I hate and Bostonians, he is everything you should hate too. He is the anti- Manny, the anti-Pedro, the anti-Paul Pierce, the anti-Randy Moss. Hell, he isn't even as cool as Jeter and Damon. At least they date Maraiah Carey and make outrageous quotes about Jesus Christ being "awesome." This kills me to say, but Tool Tex can only WISH he were Gisele-toting Tom Brady.

Tool Tex is the anti cool. Actually, he's the anti interesting. If you knew this guy personally and I asked you what he brings to the table, what would you have for me? There's no bloviating blog, no straight cash homey, no fur coat in the dugout, no drunken pictures of him hanging out in Northeastern dorm rooms, no picture with a huge titted girlfriend (you go Tim Tebow!). And on top of it all, he's a pussy whipped little bitch (my wife wanted to go to New York... Hee, hee... I'm such a family guy!).

I mean, would any of you EVER be friends with this guy?!? What has he ever said or done that you have liked?

Basically, Tool Tex is everything that I despise in athletes. He is what most people LOVE about athletes (and THAT subject needs to be it's own post), but he is not what I love. He says and does ALL the right things, he plays "hard" (my favorite trait as you all know), he plays hurt, and he has put up gaudy offensive numbers. He says nothing outlandish, he'll look great on the cover of any team's program, and he has just enough "aw shucks" attitude to make everyone believe that he is this great guy who really cares about his team, the game, and most importantly, his beloved fans. There will be no fake hamstring injuries with Tool Tex, no sound bites about plunking the Bambino on the ass, no guarantees of a World Series win, no anal rapes in Colorado hotels. He is all that white fans love about our athletes.

But I'm telling you right now... Don't be fooled. Because Tool Tex will have a meltdown in the Big Apple. And I'll love it.

Now, I know this sounds stupid given the numbers he puts up. He hits for power, plays great defense, takes his walks, and is never hurt. He has also never finished higher than seventh in the MVP balloting and to quote my boy Shaq, he has won everywhere but college and the pros. Yes, he was mired on a pathetic Texas team for years, but he has also played for short periods of time on playoff contending teams as well. And did he carry Atlanta and the Angels to playoff victories like this really cool Dominican guy with a Predator hair cut did for the Dodgers? When have you ever seen/heard him take over a game? I keep hearing that he hit .470 in the playoffs this past fall, but people fail to mention that that .470 average drove in one whole run and was also made up of seven singles, zero doubles, zero triples, and zero home runs. Does this guy sound like another guy you know? A certain someone who he was once teammates with and will now be teammates with again? Because he sure does to me. Yes, he sounds like... Wait for it... A-Rod.

Tool Tex will be the new A-Rod. Complete with once hot, Skeletor looking, 50 year old pop princess (Mariah Carey in ten years maybe?!?). And when he is, please remember that you heard it here first.

I know that sounds outrageous (and I also know that being compared to A-Rod is not exactly unflattering), but does anyone remember the numbers A-Rod put up before he came to New York?!? His numbers make Tool Tex look like Trot Nixon in his best year. And while A-Rod hasn't won anything either, his numbers DWARF Tool Tex's. Yet A-Rod is still loathed in New York and is seen as a complete failure, despite carrying the Yanks for weeks at a time on several occassions during his five years in the Bronx. A-Rod has put up huge offensive numbers in New York, yet hasn't won anything. Tool Tex could do his usual .290, 35, 120 thing in New York, but will he be a winner? Will he be a superstar? He might be, but to me he has just never screamed... Superstar.

And don't ever forget this:

"The statistics will be there, but this is not a player who will make anyone else on the team better," said a former teammate of Teixeira's. "The numbers indicate an elite player, but if you watch him every day you will realize he is a very good player, not elite."

Who knows which teammate this and if it is true, but that is ALWAYS the sense I have gotten with Tool Tex. The numbers are there, but baseball is a long season and when you are damn good, you'll pile up numbers. But what happens when it goes south?

And, oh, how I will love for it to go south. It will be so pleasing because his uber annoying pretty boy image and I-say-all-the-right-things persona will be so fun to see collapse. With any luck, he'll have a Ryan Leaf like meltdown or two. We can only hope.

When it does happen, it will be fun to say that I liked Pearl Jam first AND I hated Mark Teixeira first. I can't wait for April 24th when the Yankees come to town. While you are all booing A-Rod, Damon, and Jeter, I'll be hating on Frat Boy Tool Tex. Now if the Sox could only get Prince Fielder as a response, then I'd be REALLY happy.